- Researchers at Monash University in Australia have broken the Internet speed record: 44.2 Tbps.
- With that speed you could download 1,000 HD movies in a second.
- Best of all, they use conventional fiber optics.
Internet use has multiplied in recent months, and it must be recognized that the networks have held up quite well, at least in Spain, which is one of the countries with the largest fiber optic implantation in the world. But at times of the day there have been slowdowns, and also services like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix or YouTube have cut their bitrate. All these problems could be left behind with a new Australian technology that has broken the Internet speed record, reaching 44.2 Tbps (Terabits per second), that is, 44,200 Gbps.
As reported by Nature Communications , the most interesting thing about this record is that it is not a speed achieved in the laboratory, and they have also used conventional networks with a single transmitter chip. The record has been reached in a real test with fiber optics , between two universities more than 70 kilometers apart.
To give you an idea, this speed is almost half a million times faster than a standard fiber optic connection at 100 Mbps. With it you could download 1,000 HD movies in just a second .
The important thing about this news is not only the speed achieved, but how they have done it. High-speed networks typically use up to 80 lasers that transmit information-carrying light through fiber optics. But this new technology uses a much smaller single chip.
It has been jointly developed by three Australian universities, Monash, Swinburne, and RMIT , and has been tested on a 76.6 kilometer conventional fiber optic network that runs between the Monash University and RMIT campuses.
The key to breaking the Internet speed record lies in a micro-comb-shaped transmitter chip design , as it generates hundreds of invisible infrared lasers, each of which transmits data using a 4 Thz bandwidth (Terahertz). All in a size smaller than a coin:
Adding all the data that these hundreds of microlasers transmit at the same time, through the optical fiber, they have reached a record Internet speed of 44.2 Tbps.
Technologies like these are going to be necessary to face the future of the Internet. It is not just because of the rise of teleworking or streaming platforms. Autonomous cars, Internet of Things devices, and the 5G connection demand ever faster networks.
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